At the core of Urban Planning thought is the conviction that the City will provide jobs for the residents. All other high minded goals, such as diverse entertainment within walking distance and a sense of common purpose derived from living in close proximity to neighbors, fall apart unless those neighbors have work. So it is interesting to see the Cieslewicz Administration try and balance their theory of how urban life should work with the reality of the free market place. It is so hard to perfect your command economy when business can simply move away.
Madison is Losing A Major Research Lab: The University of Wisconsin Madison is losing a major research lab to Florida State University. The Applied Super Conductivity Center will move south next year, after a 20–year stint in Madison.
Now technically, this is UW-Madison, but the Dave Cieslewicz – Joel Rogers team treats the school and city as one and the same, and the university is part and parcel of the local economy. What is more telling about the administration’s anxiety to retain employers is their reaction to Madison-Kipp Corp, an east side industrial firm in business since 1898.
Madison-Kipp Plans Local Growth: Madison-Kipp, located in Madison Wisconsin has announced that it will add $47 million of business over the next two years and hire 40 additional employees in the same time frame. The company is looking for a site to build a new, 120,000-square-foot facility to produce all its new projects.
City Woos Madison-Kipp: The city of Madison is offering Madison-Kipp Corp. $2.5 million to keep it from opening a new plant outside of city limits. … Cieslewicz, in his letter, says his offer of $2.5 million in TIF assistance is contingent … on "a company guaranty of job retention and creation, tax increment, conformity to city prevailing and living wage ordinances in the construction of the project, and evidence of an executed 10-year lease on the property referenced herein."
The surprise is that Mayor Dave is making this offer to a type of business clearly despised by the environmental movement such as the Mayor’s prior firm 1000 Friends of Wisconsin. As the neighborhood around the factory became a liberal enclave the residents who voluntarily purchased homes near the foundry began an endless series of complaints about pollution.
Clean Air Madison: For the past 15 years, Schenk-Atwood neighborhood residents have seen a continual increase in the air pollution, noise, odors and hazardous materials created by the Madison-Kipp foundry on Atwood and Fair Oaks Avenues. From 1995 to 2002, particulate emissions increased 10-fold. It's a rare day when the noise and metallic, waxy, chlorine odors from this aluminum foundry do not blow into someone's backyard.
Hundreds of complaints have been filed with the Madison Health Department and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Countless hours have been spent by residents contacting government and company officials, attending public hearings, and trying to get Kipp to be a more responsible neighbor. After all the effort and complaints, there have been no improvements. Clean Air Madison was created to work for a cleaner environment.
Our environmentalist Mayor has decided a chemical belching industrial factory is something he really wants to retain within the heart of the city limits, despite long standing neighborhood antipathy towards the plant. In the end, the need for jobs in the urban paradise is more important than the environmental concerns of the local community. I wonder if the voters will appreciate the irony.
